Grimsby’s celebrity speedster Guy Martin is showing his mettle by building a First World War tank.

He travelled to Lincoln for his latest TV project which will be broadcast on Channel 4 on Sunday at 8pm.

“Guy Martin’s: First World War Tank” marks the 100th anniversary of when the first tank was used in battle in France.

Guy Martin's latest engineering feat to build a tank: Photo Channel4

The anniversary has rekindled memories of when a tank was given to the people of Grimsby and put in People’s Park following the end of the First World War.

The TV documentary came before Guy became a dad for the first time when tiny Dottie was born last month in Grimsby.

Guy said in an interview with Channel 4: “On November 20, it’ll be the 100th anniversary of the first time that tanks were actually successfully used in a battle.

“They’d been tried before, but they’d never really made a difference until the Battle of Cambrai.

The Tank in People's Park, Grimsby. When the war was over, old tanks were donated to towns as trophy-reminders of past battles. Grimsby's arrived in December 1919 and was formally named Edna. It was placed in People's Park and was cut up for scrap on January 20, 1930.

“I’m a bit embarrassed about how little I know about the First World War, I didn’t even know that tanks were used in it. So I wanted to make the tank because I had such a gap in my knowledge, and I wanted to learn more, and also because of the 100th anniversary.

“Also, I’m a Grimsby lad, and the tanks were created in the next town up from me, in Lincoln. That’s where it all started, and no-one knows that story.

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Guy wanted to run the tank along Lincoln High Street in a show of solidarity with the city that created the tank.

But health and safety officials stopped the planned stunt.

It was a far cry from the day a First World War tank built by Fosters of Lincoln and bearing the Number 14 and the name “Ecourt” was driven to People’s Park from railway sidings on Pasture Street at the end of the First World War.

The late Kity Byrne, of Lord Street, grandmother to Grimsby Telegraph photographer, Rick Byrne had recalled the day it was broken up and used for scrap in preparation for the Second World War.